Now, about 18km from the area that lone elephant occupies, we have found new evidence<\/a> of her ancient ancestors in the form of fossil tracksites from the Pleistocene<\/a> Epoch. These sites vary in age from 400,000 to 35,000 years. The tracks, preserved in aeolianites (the cemented remains of dune surfaces) and cemented beach deposits, dovetail with more recent evidence<\/a> that elephants historically made widespread use of open areas in the region. <\/p>\n Along with elephant tracks from sites on the Cape south coast, we identified<\/a> what appears to be the first example in the global trace fossil record of elephant trunk-drag impressions. We interpret the impressions in question as having been made by an elephant either dragging its trunk or dragging something it was gripping in its trunk. These marks are consistent with the sort of trunk-drag traces described in tracking manuals and on various websites<\/a>.<\/p>\n The extant African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana<\/em>) \u2013 the Knysna elephant belongs to this species \u2013 is known to show trunk-dragging behaviour under a variety of circumstances, including musth<\/a>, sporadic periods during which bull elephants are particularly aggressive.<\/p>\n Our recent article<\/a> focused on the 35 elephant tracksites, which are among the more than 300 vertebrate Pleistocene tracksites<\/a> that we have identified along a 350km stretch of the coastline since 2008. Such fossil tracksites can tell us many things about what happened on those ancient dunes and beaches, and the ancient environment that the elephants roamed.<\/p>\n For one, they offer insights into the probable history<\/a> of the Knysna elephants, suggesting that the remaining elephants retreated into dense afrotemperate forest for protection in recent centuries, where hunters had difficulty finding them. <\/p>\n The tracksites are also important because elephants are ecosystem engineers. Their presence may have large-scale effects on the landscape: for example, they can transform woody habitats to more open habitats. They may well have facilitated the development and maintenance of the mosaic of woodland and grassland habitats that characterised the huge, now-submerged Palaeo-Agulhas Plain<\/a> during the Pleistocene.<\/p>\n Fossil elephant tracks can take a number of forms. Sometimes they are familiar depressions; sometimes they appear as natural casts, representing the layer that filled in the tracks and, so, protruding down from the ceilings of overhangs. They can also be seen in profile in cliff outcrops. <\/p>\n Elephant tracks, predictably given the animals\u2019 size, often deform underlying layers. Sometimes, when these tracks can be discerned in profile in multiple successive layers, conclusions<\/a> can be drawn about repeated use of an area over time. In some cases, elephant tracks on beaches were precursors for the formation of potholes<\/a>. In places they have been eroded into bizarre shapes, which beach hikers admire and pass by without knowing their intriguing origins.<\/p>\n Analogies can be drawn between Pleistocene elephant tracks and Mesozoic dinosaur tracks: in both scenarios they were the largest tracks of their time, made by the heaviest creatures. In fact, it appears that the elephant tracks we described<\/a> at one site, measuring as much as 70cm in diameter, are the largest tracks ever identified since the \u201cAge of Dinosaurs\u201d.<\/p>\nLarge tracks<\/h2>\n
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